Karl Blossfeldt

Plate 71 - Cephalaria alpina

About

This work is an exquisite black-and-white photogravure plate from German Photographer Karl Blossfeldt’s seminal early-20th Century monographs Urformen der Kunst or Wundergarten der Natur. Karl Blossfeldt insisted that ’the plant must be valued as a totally artistic and architectural structure,’ and his iconic monographs are a testament to that belief. A pioneer in the field of macro-photography, Blossfeldt often constructed his own cameras allowing him to magnify his subject 30x to craft compositions infused with abstract shape, transforming ordinary buds, pods, and twigs into exotic specimens with rhythmic form.